


Essay 2: Jane Crocker | Parks and Recreation

by LightlyIntertextual (Laurasauras)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: American Dream - Freeform, Character Analysis, Controversial Topics, Essays, Femininity, Friendship, Internalized Misogyny, Isolation, Masculinity, Meta, Oppression, Politics, Privilege, Reproductive Freedom, The Homestuck Epilogues, Xenophobia, marriage rights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:55:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22348312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laurasauras/pseuds/LightlyIntertextual
Summary: An analysis of howParks and Recreationcan be seen in Jane Crocker's character and her relationships with others.
Comments: 15
Kudos: 30





	Essay 2: Jane Crocker | Parks and Recreation

**Author's Note:**

> Rated T because of complex political themes. Read with caution and let me know if I've missed any tags.

In my last essay we looked at John Egbert and  _ Con Air. _ This time, we’re going post-scratch with Jane Crocker and  _ Parks and Recreation. _ The Prospit dreamers are a lot more explicit about their media influences, which makes them a lot easier to analyse and find textual evidence, which is why my first essays will look at them. 

As with  _ Con Air, _ there are a lot of references to  _ Parks and Rec _ in  _ Homestuck, _ and they’re not always sign-posted. Someone who has never seen the show might not recognise Lil Seb being named in honor of the adored horse mascot from  _ Parks and Rec, _ for example. (I find it pretty sweet that Jane named the bunny Dirk built for her after a horse.) 

As a heads up, this episode will be taking the whole of  _ Homestuck _ and related works into account, including the  _ Epilogues. _ It also will be getting political, due to the nature of the show and Jane’s character. While I’m not in the business of pretending to be an impartial person with no political leanings, I’ve done my best to be neutral for the purposes of this essay. I have elaborated on this in the end notes. Please see the tags for full content descriptors.

Jane  _ is _ xenophobic and causes great harm in the epilogues, but I don’t believe she’s doomed to be an inherently bad person or character in every timeline, or that the _Homestuck_ authors intend to imply that she is beyond redemption. 

Onto the essay!

Leslie Knope, the main character in  _ Parks and Rec, _ is a role model for ambitious women everywhere, so it’s unsurprising that Jane connects with the show so much. Leslie has wanted to be involved in politics literally since she was in kindergarten, just as Jane has always looked forward to her position as future Crockercorp CEO, and has worked tirelessly every day of her life to achieve her goals.

In the first season of  _ Parks and Rec, _ Leslie’s constant enthusiasm doesn’t get her anywhere. She tries so hard, but is met with complete ambivalence from her co-workers and friends. Because of this, she often comes across as the butt of the joke and is perceived as incredibly naïve to think that she can ever make a difference.

But as the seasons go on, her hard work pays off. Leslie never loses her spirit or intensity, but the people around her start to respect and love her. It’s her reliance on community and the fact that she loves and is loved in return that begins to see her succeed. In short, while ambition is traditionally seen as a masculine trait, it is Leslie’s femininity—her passion, her relationships, her attention to small details—that pave the way for her success in a line of work dominated by men.

Leslie is an underdog. She’s a woman, and she cares so much, and both these things lead people to belittle and dismiss her. Her every action is scrutinised, criticised and blown out of proportion by the media, while her male counterparts, particularly Councilman Dexhart, are corrupt, useless and no scandal sticks to them.

Because of this role model, it’s easy to see how Jane, despite being a heiress and eventually a god, might see herself as a Leslie too. There’s no denying that she works incredibly hard, or that she faces obstacles to her success. And, with the arguable exception of John, Jane is the only one for whom the destruction of her world and transition to Earth C is objectively a bad thing for her future. 

But we don’t actually see Jane focus much on Leslie. Her idol from the show is Ron Swanson. He’s not only described as the “perfect man”, she also immediately connects this with her attempts to mimic him.

Though she attributes this moustache to a different man, it’s the same style Ron Swanson wears. Jane's moustache aesthetic continues through the comic, though admittedly that was in fashion in 2011 (I don't know why). 

Where Leslie is strongly hinted to sit on the left-wing of politics through her commitment to helping people through the power of government, Ron is a libertarian who doesn’t want the government to interfere with any aspect of any person’s life. He doesn’t believe in laws or codes, and thinks that public services like parks should be privatised.

And, as Jane mimics his moustache and his breakfast habits, almost from her introduction we get hints that she would like to be that private company that takes over public services.

Ron Swanson is reclusive, he’s independent to the extreme and he’s the picture of American masculinity. He only shows excitement when faced with a miniature horse and when he is challenged by a puzzle, but his lack of emotional availability doesn’t inhibit his ability to get real with the people he cares about. And he’s a role model and mentor to Leslie. 

In short, he greatly resembles Dirk. 

Dirk is, by necessity, incredibly self-sufficient. He’s both physically and emotionally unavailable. He speaks with a Southern affectation that evokes the kind of masculinity I discussed in my last essay. He’s further associated with  _ Parks and Rec _ not only through the bunny he gifts Jane being named Lil Seb, but also by him naming a character in his edit of Detective Pony after Pawnee, the fictional setting of the show ( [ https://www.homestuck.com/story/4440 ](https://www.homestuck.com/story/4440) ). And he’s a role model and mentor to Jane. 

And, he uses her ambition because he’d rather be the one pulling the strings than be the actual leader.

There’s almost nothing I’d like more than to spend the rest of this essay talking about Dirk’s motivations in the  _ Epilogues _ ; they’re even highly relevant to Jane’s arc. I will restrain myself to the minimum, though. 

It’s textually explicit that Dirk was scheming for years in advance to get Jane to run for office.

From there on, however, we go into the realm of speculation. Given that Dirk and Dave’s conversation in  _ Meat _ about the political race (above) occurs immediately after Dirk has explained his position as a foil to increase Jake’s political influence, and that Jake ultimately sides with Dave and Karkat, I think it’s a valid interpretation that Dirk intended that to happen all along and that Jane’s running was also a foil. Especially given that Dirk proves that he’s very capable of manipulating his friends’ emotions.

Despite Echidna’s instruction to Kanaya that Earth C be in Karkat’s hands, Karkat’s confidence as a leader is at its lowest at the end of  _ Homestuck 1 _ and it remains in that trough up until he’s given proper motivation; Jane’s incredibly unsuitable candidacy. In  _ Meat _ , her running inspires him to oppose. In  _ Candy _ , her political interference through the medium of her business position inspires him to rebel.

Jane is definitely not in on Dirk’s scheming. He needs her to authentically be a threat to Earth C so that Karkat will rise up. Jake is likewise ignorant, and is easily swayed based on whoever is taking the most authoritative tone with him at any given moment.

It’s interesting that the humans in  _ Homestuck _ , including Dave who is obsessed with Obama, are generally aligned with individual rights and therefore reflect right-wing values. 

Contrastingly, the brutal world of Alternia had many problems, fascism among them, but every troll was given a hive, a stipend and free education, even if there was casteist/ableist/probably other bigotry bullshit involved. 

(We see evidence of this class disparity in  _ Homestuck _ , but more strikingly in  _ Friendsim _ and  _ Pesterquest _ . We can infer that Vriska is able to afford her high tech prosthesis due to her high caste because Tavros doesn’t have that option until the game has begun and castes are irrelevant. In [Tavros’s ](https://mspaintadventures.fandom.com/wiki/Pesterquest:_Volume_8) [ _ Pesterquest  _ ](https://mspaintadventures.fandom.com/wiki/Pesterquest:_Volume_8) [route](https://mspaintadventures.fandom.com/wiki/Pesterquest:_Volume_8), this is made more explicit when Kanaya’s higher caste and financial position allow her to make alterations to Tavros’s hive that greatly improve his quality of life. )

In both  _ Homestuck _ and  _ Parks and Rec, _ the political race isn't a question of politics but rather comes down to a popularity contest. Bobby Newport nearly wins the councilman seat because he’s more charming (just as Karkat nearly wins with Jake’s help), but Leslie inevitably wins over him and the public. It has nothing to do with qualifications, and everything to do with likeability.

But Jane is lacking the most important thing that Leslie has; her friends. 

_ Parks and Rec _ opens with Leslie as assistant director in the lowest rung of local government. She does more work than anyone in the department, and arguably the entire council. But she doesn’t achieve anything.

In the first episode, she meets Ann. Though the local politics angle is important,  _ Parks and Rec _ has always been intended to be about friendship ([source](https://www.webcitation.org/5ysGWElO8?url=http://www.avclub.com/articles/michael-schur,53574/) ). And while Leslie’s intensity is initially off-putting for Ann, she’s also charming and an excellent friend.

Once Ann starts loving Leslie as much as she is loved by Leslie, the dynamic starts to shift. Leslie gains the security to let go of the unrequited flame she had been holding for Mark and encourage Ann to date him instead. She learns how to engage her team and use their strengths. We see the respect that she and Ron share for each other.

Her friends spend every spare second putting everything they have into her campaign, and that’s the reason she wins. Even Ron, whose views are polar opposite to hers, does everything he can to help.

Let’s look a little closer at the relationship between Ron and Leslie. Their relationship is as integral to the show as Leslie and Ann’s. They respect each other so much, and do everything they can to build each other up. 

As many essayists and fans have pointed out, Ron and Leslie’s friendship represents the possibility for respect and love to exist between people with opposing political beliefs, something that was becoming more controversial in 2009 when the show first aired and has only become more so. More than once characters say that being “political” in politics is popularity suicide, especially in regards to the most important issues. It’s a lot easier to like someone who campaigns on the platform of more community engagement and a general promise to work hard than on anything actually controversial.

_ Parks and Rec _ deliberately focuses on the local issues so that the friendships don’t have to contend with controversy. The rare episodes that bring up something more serious have a focus on the characters coming together to offer advice or just support each other through it and still offer light moments. 

Contrastingly,  _ The Homestuck Epilogues _ deliberately don’t look at any policies other than Jane’s xenophobic ones that include restricting trolls’ right to reproduce, their marriage rights and freedom to participate in politics. When Dave brings up the economy, it’s comical how irrelevant it feels compared to the bigger issues. We never hear from the other side, even Karkat’s only platform is “stop Jane”. This political tension underlies every chapter, dominating the attention and refusing to allow the characters peace to connect. It’s too fatiguing to reach out when every interaction makes everyone miserable.

This is made worse because Jane is not Leslie. She is not moved by emotive arguments and in fact believes that emotions invalidate a point. She’s the kind of politician who would allow a debate between a troll and a human over whether trolls should be allowed to reproduce freely, and would expect both parties to remain equally clinical and respectful. Not out of malice, but because the only subject that could move her to anger is the implication that she’s unprofessional in some way.

Jane can’t understand the implications of what she’s saying because she’s blinded by privilege. She’s never been treated as lesser over something she can’t control, except for a brief conversation with Caliborn. She’s never experienced failure, except in regards to her feelings for Jake. She’s never encountered anything she believes to be out of the range of her eventual command. When she’s frustrated by a delay in the post, she looks to the day when she will own a federal agency, because “just accepting it” is for people without ambition.

(This is not to excuse her bigotry, good people listen and learn when they misstep. Jane gets defensive.)

She also believes herself to be the most qualified person for the job. Not only was she raised to be a CEO, but she has multiple degrees without working towards them. 

So, as she pushes forward with what she honestly believes to be the right thing to do, with a xenophobia that is immediately established in the  _ Epilogues _ as having been around for a while and I believe has been encouraged by Dirk. He would be uniquely equipped to describe both the history of his world and relate it personally to Jane through motivating her to make Her Imperial Condescension regret ever using the Crocker name. 

It’s her stance on troll reproduction control that isolates her and lands her in direct opposition to half her friends. Issues of children and choice do tend to be divisive in this way. Homestuck chose this issue carefully for its relevance.

For Jane, this is baffling. The mothergrub produces an enormous amount of grubs to compensate for the incredibly harsh environment on Alternia. On Earth C, this could pose problems. It’s not an invalid concern, but her assumptions about the danger trolls pose, the lack of trust she has in their independent governance, and the wording of the “Board of Responsible Troll Reproduction” all expose the unconscious bigotry behind her good intentions. 

Jane believes trolls are too close to the issue to be in full control, but offers Kanaya a position in her government as an attempt to give them some say. Of course, to Kanaya, Karkat and other trolls, being given one voice in a room full of humans talking about how to restrict troll freedom (for their own good, of course!) is an insult. 

Because Jane wants to believe herself to be a good person, because her concerns sound so reasonable to her and because she becomes so offended by the implication that she’s xenophobic that she can’t hear any criticism relating to the topic, she continues to push forward her agendas believing that she’s facing the kind of obstacle Leslie faced when she was trying to get elected. To Jane, “xenophobic” means “unreasonable”, “cruel” and it means she’s “bad”. And that feels like such an unfair, hurtful judgement that she sees the people she’s hurt as people who are hurting her.

Dirk says in  _ Meat _ , “Morality is a cultural construct. It’s pure ego for any of them to believe that their personal interpretation of it will result in the most effective laws.” ([here](https://www.homestuck.com/epilogues/meat/21) ) 

Leslie has this ego; she works extraordinarily hard to enact the changes that she personally believes will best benefit the community. When the laws don’t align with that, she either acts against them ([here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbhfYuYtLzk) ) or works to change them ([here](https://parksandrecreation.fandom.com/wiki/Farmers_Market) ). It should be pointed out that she does have a strict code of honour that keeps the audience from ever seeing her as unethical, but she always gets her way. A cynical critic might point out that she’s seen as moral because her judgement lines up with the audience’s and her opposition is always a ridiculous caricature.

This is what Jane does too. She isn’t callously trying to cause pain and to my knowledge never breaks any laws. She creates new laws to make sure of it! She just thinks she knows best. She even mimics the way Leslie provides a “bailout” for a struggling video store when she supports the locksmith industry despite a lack of demand.

As Kanaya puts it, Jane’s descent into fascism isn’t something that happens because of a lack of good intentions, or overnight. Jane (and Feferi) have the potential for harm because their good intentions are not tempered by the ability to listen to criticism. She has a collection of honorary degrees (which are given to people who have contributed to the field in lieu of actual study), and she thinks she’s earned them, not seeing how her godhood has contributed to their acquisition or that Dave’s education is barely lesser than hers.

To put it in a very simplistic and possibly reductive way, while left-wingers like Leslie Knope believe that every single person deserves to have the best chance they possible can to succeed, right-wingers like Jane prioritise their own personal communities. Jane’s not a fascist because she’s right-wing, she’s a fascist because she asserts herself as an unquestionable ruler built on the demonisation of a group of people.  Leslie believes that the government exists to support the community, and does everything she can to provide services to the people. Jane believes in corporate freedom and protecting the people she identifies as her own: humans.

From Jane’s perspective, Leslie’s strengths are her authenticity, her ambition, and her absolute tenacity when it comes to getting her own way. There’s nothing that Leslie Knope can’t achieve, because she will work harder than anyone else in the world.  Contrastingly, Jane would judge Leslie’s micromanaging, ditziness and willingness to be insulted without fighting back as weaknesses. She would see the moments when Leslie  _ does _ lose her temper, when she is emotional or  _ feminine _ as a betrayal of what could otherwise be a strong role model and would aspire not to fall into those habits.

Jane believes that to be masculine is to be strong, and to be feminine is to be weak.

What’s incredibly interesting about this, is that it provides a direct contrast to Jake. Where Jane covers her walls with men who she admires, every one of Jake’s role models is a woman, with the exception of Dirk who he is romantically interested and doesn’t seek to emulate in the same way as his grandmother (and penpal), Lara Croft and Neytiri. But that’s a topic for another essay.

Jane also believes in the American dream, wherein those who work hard can achieve anything. (This is an ideology which is prominent across the world, but Jane’s personal interpretation involves 50s aesthetic and a picket fence; she’s incredibly American coded on top of, you know, being American.)

It’s not an inherently incorrect perception; there’s a reason that historically people have looked for their big break in America. Though there’s always been an absence of a safety net, those who are willing to work themselves to the bone and are lucky enough to avoid any expenses can and do succeed. This was especially true in the past.

But there’s a flipside to this dream, and to the beliefs associated with it. Those who succeed tend to put it entirely down to the hard work they have put in, and it becomes difficult for them to engage in empathy with those who don’t have success because to admit that any other factors were involved would diminish their achievements. It leads to believing that if anyone can succeed with hard work, those who are struggling must not be trying. 

This perception is continuously reinforced in the media. We celebrate the underdog and find stories of those who have overcome adversity to be inspiring. This is especially true of reality television, but it exists in all media. We like to see people  _ earn _ their place and overcome obstacles, even avoidable ones.

For Jane, inheriting her position does not mean she hasn’t earned it. It means that she comes from a family who put hard work in, and she will continue that legacy. We see this reflected in the other show that is continuously referenced in relation to Jane,  _ Arrested Development. _

Right-wing ideology allows the Bluth family in  _ Arrested Development _ to live their incredibly privileged lifestyle while contributing absolutely nothing to society. For most of the show, their obvious selfishness is balanced by how hard Michael works to keep them together, to get his father out of prison and to keep their company going. By the time it becomes obvious that Michael isn’t as good as he wants to believe he is, we know and like the characters enough to keep watching anyway. 

There are parallels in the way the characters in  _ Arrested Development _ both struggle for closeness and sabotage each others’ closeness and the alpha kids’ complicated social dynamics, which are both codependent and volatile. Jane compares Jake to the spineless, camp Tobias when she’s upset with him (specifically for obliviously complaining about his boyfriend). And, the characters across both medias can’t really grow up.

Jane’s Tobias poster is one of the Blue Men Jake gifted her to match his thing for Blue Ladies. He’s part of a collection of men that Jane displays on her wall out of interest and admiration. Her own choices skew towards the: 

  * Mustachioed
  * Funny
  * Classically American
  * Capable



Interestingly, these are all attributes that Jane herself displays at various points more than what she seems to find attractive. 

Jane’s always been more funny, conservative, assertive and masculine than just about any other character in  _ Homestuck _ . She’s in her own class, and there’s a sense that while she treasures her friends, she’ll probably outgrow them as she takes up the Crocker brand and moves out into the world. 

But that doesn’t happen. Instead she’s pulled into Sburb and suddenly her friends are the only people she can consider her peers. And at the end of the comic, before  _ The Epilogues, _ she’s a bit of a loose end. 

Dirk and Jake are narratively tied together in a way she can’t understand, Roxy and Callie have grown closer while she wasn’t looking ([though Caliborn says that ](https://www.homestuck.com/story/5138) [ _ Jane _ was Callie’s favourite ](https://www.homestuck.com/story/5138) ), the beta kids are a close knit group that’s  _ very _ difficult to enter and her dad, after not seeing her for months, hugs John first instead of her.

To put it bluntly, she’s nobody’s favourite. She’s desperate for that, but it isn’t something she can fix through hard work. Worse, it’s embarrassing for her to want something so  _ soft,  _ so it’s easier to pretend she doesn’t need it.

Like Michael in  _ Arrested Development _ , she denies that she wants more romantically or socially in general, prioritises goals that she can achieve by herself and poorly conceals that she’s desperate for validation and afraid of not measuring up. She fails to learn the key message of Parks and Rec: “We need to remember what's important in life: friends, waffles, work. Or waffles, friends, work. Doesn't matter, but work is third.” (Season 3, Episode 13).

Jane’s a Prospit dreamer to her core. Internal reflection is not something she’s comfortable with, she’s stubborn and she has unshakeable conviction in her own beliefs. Like John, she thinks it’s ridiculous to believe in the supernatural. Like Jade, her refusal to acknowledge feelings doesn’t come out in the intentional dumb facade that Jake and John use, but in the focus on external goals. 

In both halves of _The_ _ Epilogues _ , Jane is left completely isolated in a time when the media around her would have her believe she would have the most support. In every sitcom I can think of, including  _ Parks and Rec,  _ when a character chases their dream, their friends support them through it. 

In  _ The Epilogues, _ Dirk sets Jane on a path and then she ends up functionally alone. In  _ Candy, _ he tells her to abandon the path before killing himself. In  _ Meat, _ he both presents himself as the one who can get her the presidency and is too busy with his own plans to give her a single sentence more than necessary, before leaving her to go be a villain. 

One by one, her friends (and her only equals on the planet) first move from friendship to tolerating her, then leave her altogether, often to outright oppose her. 

And she has no idea why. 

To us, it’s obvious. She’s a fucking fascist. But she believes in her cause and she defines herself as an ambitious woman first and foremost, so she  _ has _ to be willing to sacrifice her popularity for her career. But she’s also  _ so _ lonely, isolated in the way that all the  _ Homestuck _ kids are, and she doesn’t want to admit that what she wants more than anything is to be loved, to be loved by literally anyone, but we can tell. 

This is true even at the end of  _ Candy, _ when she has been at this for long enough that we could be excused for thinking she’s lost all her humanity.

Dirk is gone. Roxy has finally abandoned her. Jake is there, but Jake has never made a single choice and she doesn’t expect him to start now; I’m not sure if he even counts as a person to her. And she’s just been told her dad has been killed. She has no one.

Except Gamzee.

Jane keeps Gamzee by her side for years, despite him being Gamzee. Eventually he pushes too far. He calls her xenophobic and questions her genocidal plans, calls her “cute when [she’s] mad” and boops her on the nose. She banishes him, but before he can be thrown out, he makes one last plea and Jane  _ stops. _ Jane stops and listens despite having just lost her dad, despite being the angriest we’ve ever seen her, despite having decided that every last troll deserves to die. 

Because for a second, she thinks that someone  _ loves _ her. Because she hasn’t had love in so long, and probably doubts she ever did have it. 

Like Leslie Knope (and Michael Bluth), Jane Crocker works damned hard. She has full confidence in her morality and authority. But she is entirely without connection, and is unable to see any way forward but her own.

Jane’s a contentious character these days. She hits close to home for those of us who have been confronted with having to choose between friendship and irreconcilable political differences. Before the  _ Epilogues, _ she hit close to home for those who had felt the agonising pain of unrequited love or who had blown their chance at love. Despite the evil that she’s capable of, we’ve seen where she’s come from. 

It is through understanding the stories around her that we can better understand her. Through understanding the path she’s taken so far and her motivations, we can accept stories where she makes different choices without losing her identity, stories where she turns out like Nanna Egbert. She might not deserve redemption in  _ Candy,  _ but that’s not the only universe in _Homestuck._ I look forward to the possibility of seeing a Jane who can do better. 

Next time, I’ll be looking at  _ Peter Pan  _ and  _ Hook _ and how those stories can help us understand Vriska Serket and Tavros Nitram.

Until then, [enjoy the true merger of ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7kdEIAloi0) [ _ Parks and Rec _ and  _ Homestuck _ .  ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7kdEIAloi0)

Works cited:

_ Arrested Development,  _ created by Mitchell Hurwitz. Fox, 2003-2006. Netflix, 3013-present.

Heisler, Steve. "Interview: Michael Schur".  _ The A.V. Club _ . March 24, 2011  [ https://www.webcitation.org/5ysGWElO8?url=http://www.avclub.com/articles/michael-schur,53574/ ](https://www.webcitation.org/5ysGWElO8?url=http://www.avclub.com/articles/michael-schur,53574/) .

Hendershot, Heather. “Parks and Recreation: The Cultural Forum.”  _ How To Watch Television _ , edited by Ethan Thompson and Jason Mittell, NYU Press, 2013, pp. 204–212. JSTOR,  [ www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qght3.26 ](http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qght3.26) .

Hussie, Andrew.  _ Homestuck _ . Homestuck, 2009. Homestuck.com.

_ Parks and Recreation,  _ created by Greg Daniels and Michael Schur. NBC, 2009-2015.

The Take.  _ Parks and Recreation: Leslie Knope, A Woman’s Woman in Government.  _ The Take, 2018.  [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DshRfenHVRg ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DshRfenHVRg)

**Author's Note:**

> Please read before commenting.
> 
> I’m very aware that in the current political climate the assertation that a person’s political leanings are not an automatic indication of their morality is a radical one and I deeply respect that politics frequently are, in real life especially but in Homestuck as well, a matter of life and death for the most vulnerable people in any given society.
> 
> I would like to take this opportunity to say that I’m a firm lefty, and not just in name or because I sometimes say so on social media. 
> 
> Last week I marched in a climate rally, I’ve campaigned for more accessible tertiary education, I volunteer at a local writer’s club to promote literacy and education and used to volunteer for the local Landcare organisation planting trees. I’ve fundraised for marginalised groups, I’ve put many hours into maintaining wikis and I spend most of my time creating free content. I believe that every person on the planet deserves fundamental human rights and that the world is capable of making that a reality.
> 
> I also believe that most people want to be good. I believe that most of the time bigotry is caused by fear, a lack of education or a desire to be part of a community, not malice. I know that bullies exist across the political spectrum. I know that people contain multitudes and that they can grow and change. None of these are contradictory statements.
> 
> And while I believe wholeheartedly that governments need to get a whole lot more left-wing very quickly, I don’t think individuals are automatically good or bad because of their often unexamined voting preferences or that the world would be a better place if everyone shared my exact political perspective. Philosophy has to be a conversation, not a monologue.
> 
> I don’t want anyone to think this essay is intended to persuade people that they must forgive Jane or be okay with her or her arc. But equally, she's a character. It's okay to like her. It's even okay to like her when she's bad; the Crockertier aesthetic is lit.


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